Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Flynn is under fire for reportedly discussing the election-related sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration with a Russian ambassador before the inauguration.

By Win McNamee/Getty.

The first three weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency have done little to suggest that the scandals that overshadowed his campaign ended at the White House. If anything, the infighting among his staff and anonymous backstabbing in the press has only worsened as the stakes have risen higher. In the latest disconcerting leak out of Washington, a number of people within the U.S. government saw fit to inform The Washington Post and The New York Times that Mike Flynn, Trump’s controversial national-security adviser, had been recorded on a pre-inauguration call with a Russian official discussing the sanctions then President Barack Obama imposed in retaliation for Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election—a conversation that, in addition to contradicting public statements by White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, may have been illegal under federal law.

Nine current and former United States officials toldThe Washington Post that in a series of interceptedconversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Flynn explicitly broached the topic of the sanctions. Two officials told the Post that Flynn told Kislyak that Russia should not “overreact” to the measures. “Kislyak was left with the impression that the sanctions would be revisited at a later time,” one former official told the newspaper. Russian president Vladimir Putin ultimately decided against ordering retaliatory measures against the U.S., suggesting that he would wait to negotiate with the new administration. Trump praised the move, writing on Twitter, “Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!”

Asked in an interview on Wednesday if he and Kislyak had ever discussed the sanctions, Flynn twice responded, “No.” But in a statement on Thursday, Flynn’s spokesperson walked back the national security adviser’s denial, telling the Post that Flynn “indicated that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”

It is not the first time that the former lieutenant general, who took a job after retirement as a contributor for the Russian state TV channel RT, has faced tough questions about his relationship with Moscow. Last month, The Wall Street Journalreported that Flynn was investigated as part of an ongoing inquiry by the F.B.I. into the Russian government’s alleged campaign to influence the election. While it was unclear when Flynn first came under scrutiny, the Journal reported that his communications with Kislyak on December 29, the same day that the Obama administration announced new sanctions against Moscow, had become a central focus of the broader U.S. counterintelligence investigation into whether the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russian officials.

At the time, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Flynn and Kislyak were merely trying to schedule a time for Trump to speak with Putin. “That was it. Plain and simple,” he asserted. Pence offered a more definitive dismissal of speculation that the communications were about the sanctions. During an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation last month, Pence said it was “strictly coincidental” that Flynn and Kislyak spoke when they did, and that the two “did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia” and that, after having spoken with Flynn, he could confirm that the phone calls “had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions.”

The accounts given by Spicer and Pence are contradicted by U.S. officials who said they saw transcripts of the conversation between Flynn and Kislyak, both of whom should have known their call would be monitored by U.S. intelligence. One such official told the newspaper that either Flynn “misled” Pence, or Pence “misspoke.”

The office of the vice president appeared irked by the reports on Flynn. Aides to the vice president responded with annoyance in comments to Politico later on Friday, with one adviser worrying that Pence being left in the dark would diminish his perceived standing in the West Wing.

It is unclear whether Flynn may have broken the law in his conversations with Kislyak. Some officials suggested that he may have been in violation of the 1799 Logan Act, which bars private citizens from interfering in U.S. diplomatic affairs, but the statute has never been prosecuted. Officials also emphasized to the Post that while the sanctions were discussed with Kislyak, they did not view Flynn’s comments as a promise to Russia to take action after the inauguration. And to date, the sanctions remain in place.

The allegations, nonetheless, add to the narrative that Flynn’s days in the White House could be numbered. Last month, Trump caused a stir when he signed an executive order that gave controversial White House strategist Stephen Bannon a permanent seat on the “principals committee” of the National Security Council and essentially demoted the joint chiefs of staff. At the time, the move was seen as a power grab on the part of Bannon, who has emerged as an influential figure in the fledgling administration, but other reports indicated that the shake-up may have been in response to Flynn’s own shortcomings. “People close to Mr. Bannon said he is not accumulating power for power’s sake, but is instead helping to fill a staff leadership vacuum created, in part, by Mr. Flynn’s stumbling performance as national security adviser,” The New York Times’s Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman wrote. And when Reuters reported on Thursday that Trump had floundered in his most recent phone call with Putin, having to pause the conversation to ask aides about details of a treaty he did not understand, the fault appeared to lie, in part, with Flynn and his N.S.C. staff for failing to adequately brief the president beforehand.

In a statement on Friday, Adam Schiff, the top ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that the allegations against Flynn raise “serious questions of legality and fitness for office” and added, “If he did so, and then he and other Administration officials misled the American people, his conduct would be all the more pernicious, and he should no longer serve in this Administration or any other.”